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New York: An influential adviser to the Pentagon received a secret message from a Lebanese-American businessman days before the US forces strike in Iraq that Saddam Hussain wanted to make a deal to avert the war.

The businessman's efforts were, however, of no avail and the US went ahead with the military action.

The revelation comes at a time when questions are being raised in Washington whether the Bush administration did enough to avoid war.

Iraqi officials, including the chief of the Iraqi Intelligence Service, had told the businessman that they wanted Washington to know that Iraq no longer possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) and they offered to allow American troops and experts to conduct a search, the businessman said in an interview with the media.

He said the Iraqis also offered to hand over a man accused of being involved in the World Trade Centre bombing in 1993 who was being held in Baghdad.

At one point, he told the New York Times, the Iraqis pledged to hold elections.

The messages from Baghdad, first relayed in February to an analyst in the office of Douglas J. Feith, the under secretary of defence for policy and planning, were part of an attempt by Iraqi intelligence officers to open last-ditch negotiations with the Bush administration through a clandestine communications channel, 'Times' reported quoting people involved.

The efforts were portrayed by Iraqi officials as having the approval of President Saddam Hussain, according to interviews and documents. The overtures, after a decade of evasions and deceptions by Iraq, were ultimately rebuffed.

But the 'Times' said the messages raised enough interest that in early March, Richard N. Perle, an influential adviser to top Pentagon officials, met in London with the Lebanese-American businessman, Imad Hage.

According to both men, Hage laid out the Iraqis' position to Perle, and he pressed the Iraqi request for a direct meeting with Perle or another representative of the United States.

"I was dubious that this would work," said Perle, widely recognised as an intellectual architect of the Bush administration's hawkish policy toward Iraq, "but I agreed to talk to people in Washington."

PTI